


Winter Lightning

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Confessions, Developing Relationship, F/M, Nighttime, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Power Outage, but not necessarily of the romantic kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22609273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Bucky and Darcy grow closer as they stand on a balcony during a blackout.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 14
Kudos: 104





	Winter Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. It is I. Back from my what felt like eternal slumber. But I am really hoping that my creative blockage is finally being chipped away. Bit by bit. 
> 
> Here is one bit, a very random one shot I literally just wrote. On the eve of my birthday. 
> 
> I mean, how could I not be inspired with all of the hype surrounding the new Disney+ show? I'm telling you guys, I've got so many ideas for new stories, one-shots and otherwise. Here's to hoping I can actually write them!
> 
> Please enjoy. And please tell me if I've lost my writing spark. I have the uncomfortable feeling it's grown very dull.

**.**

_i know it's lonely in the dark_

_and this year's a visitor_

_and we have to know that faith declines_

_i'm not out of the way_

"Faith" | Bon Iver

**.**

“I dreamt about you last night,” she says into the darkness, glad when she has realised what she has said that he can’t see her face.

It was meant to be a clear night, but the clouds rolled in several hours ago, bathing the DC neighbourhood in inky black. The only light source available comes from the row of candles lined across the iron balcony railing. The small flames flutter in the slight breeze that managed to sweep the power out a little while before. She wants to run her fingers over them, distract herself from the confession she has made, but she remains beside the solid figure, watching the soft yellow glow from the candles cast shadows across his face. She cannot imagine what he’s thinking. Why it’s taking him so long to respond, why she said anything in the first place. Her words hang between them like a live wire—neither of them are brave enough to touch it for fear of getting burned.

He answered her call almost immediately following the power outage. Her fear of the dark and of the loneliness compelled her fingers to find his name in her contacts list. But this is not why she asked him to come. It had nothing to do with the dream. It was merely for company. For the knowledge that if an axe murderer decided to climb up the fire escape to her apartment they would be instantly incapacitated by a hundred year-old ex-soldier with a metal arm.

But she had to open her big mouth.

It’s the nerves, she thinks as the silence stretches even further as if the humiliation no doubt suffocating him as much as her is putting both imaginary and physical distance between them. When her anxiety starts acting up, she just starts blurting stuff. This goes as far back as junior high when she got grounded for a month after confessing, without any provocation from either of her parents, to taking one puff of a joint at a party. It’s why SHIELD eventually dropped her. Why she moved back to DC from London, leaving Jane and Selvig to their science in order to escape the pressure of holding so many dangerous secrets in her head.

It’s why she knows him in the first place. Because when she saw him at the Vietnam memorial her jaw unhinged and out came the words, _hey, i know thor._

He does not know Thor. Not well, at least. But it got them talking, and now he is her emergency power cut contact.

“No, but, like, it was weird.” She hears herself talking again, suddenly, catching herself off guard. She tries commanding herself to stop but it’s as if her brain and mouth have disconnected. Her unblinking eyes zero in on his face, his eyes, his lips, and she regurgitates the contents of her dream. “You were there, but it wasn’t here. It was . . . I don’t even know where it was. No, that’s a lie, I do know. We were in the chamber where they used to keep you.” She says this part softly. He told her of the deep sleeps the HYDRA scientists put him into, and the horrific retelling managed to sneak all the way into the back of her brain, waiting for the perfect opportunity to show itself.

She should stop. Now. Because it wasn’t a dream. Not really. It was more like a nightmare. But she has already started, and Darcy Lewis has never been very good at taking preventative measures.

“But you weren’t yourself,” she says, images from the ordeal flashing against the night sky. “You were scary. You were . . . him.”

Bucky’s eyes move to hers just as a streak of winter lightning pierces the sky, revealing an almost gaunt, frightened face.

Okay. She has done it. Ruined whatever it is they have. The friendship, the partnership, the bond is lost. Darcy inhales sharply as realisation settles in. A sour taste balances on her tongue. Like bile and blood mixed together.

“I—” She opens her mouth again, this time to apologise, to beg forgiveness, but she is stuck once more. 

Thunder breaks. Cackling echoes of the boom jeer at Darcy’s self-annihilation.

“Are you afraid of me?” His voice follows the thunder, and it rumbles and is so low that she thinks for a moment it is just a continuation of the thunder, but she watches as his mouth moves and quickly connects the dots.

She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Not at all. Really, I’m not. I don’t know—I’m not sure why I had that dream. Or why I felt like I needed to tell you about it. I swear, I’m not scared of you,” she says, moving closer to him, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders brushing the damp floor of the balcony.

She glances down at his hands and finds they are curled into fists. Without thinking—because she is Darcy and premeditation means nothing to her—she reaches towards his right hand, allowing the blanket to drop completely. Exposed now to the chilled air, she shivers. Goosebumps explode across her chest, down her arms. Despite the temperature, Bucky’s hand is burning. She eventually coaxes open his fingers and grips him tightly. She tugs on his arm and meets his blazing gaze.

“You’re not him. I know you’re not,” she says. “I wouldn’t invite that guy to my apartment in the middle of the night in the middle of a power outage. You are my go-to-guy for that. You.” She pokes his chest with her free hand, right over his heart, and she feels it pulse against her fingertip.

Another flash of lightning breaks through the clouds, through the renewed stillness, and Darcy places her palm against Bucky’s chest and watches the white light retreat. Seconds later thunder crashes, and as the reverberation moves about them, rattling the trees, something cold touches Darcy’s hand. Startled, she looks for the source of the sensation and finds Bucky’s other hand, the dangerous one, the one she knows he uses to win those battles he fights with Sam, clutching her.

Her eyes slip upwards. Moving past his collarbone, his throat, his chin, his nose, they come to a stop at his eyes, which are now looking down at her with hardly any trace of that fierceness. The blues which look green in the yellow firelight hold Darcy’s attention.

She waits for him to speak.

“It’s strange,” he says, frowning. Behind him, lightning flashes.

“What’s strange?”

“I spent so long wishing I could go back in time to change things. Everything. But I don’t find myself wishing for that anymore,” he says, and his mouth pulls upwards ever so slightly.

Darcy can’t help herself. She can’t wait. “Why’s that?”

“Because,” he says, “doing that, changing everything, would mean that I would have to go my whole life without knowing you. And that life sounds boring.”

The unexpected revelation forces Darcy’s lips apart. She smiles widely. Bites her tongue. Laughs like a schoolgirl.

He isn’t scared of her either. In light of Darcy's past encounters with men, this is good news.

The wind picks up as they stand on the balcony, taking the candles' flames with it. Fully immersed in darkness now, Darcy, holding Bucky close, is unafraid.


End file.
